


The Machine Isn't Broken

by melliyna



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-08
Updated: 2010-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The machine isn't broken, the machine is waiting for you. An alternate universe in which '100' ended slightly differently. And what it means to them all, to have to face that. With a huge amount of thanks to Bessemerprocess, Bibliothekara, Eternal_Sadist and Kelachrome who have all given this story all of the good words - I just fill in the blank spaces they inspired me to finish filling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Machine Isn't Broken

The tie won't lie straight. He's smoothed it about 15 times in the last hour, but it's still wrinkled.

Hotch looks at himself in the mirror of the public bathroom. He knows exactly where he is. He can recite it, chapter and verse. 3 rooms down, East Wing, 4th Floor, John F. Ogden Virginia District Courthouse, Arlington, Virginia, The United States, Northern Hemisphere, The Earth.

Haley loved James Joyce. He never had quite gotten the hang of the Irishman, but she loved the winding prose. He lets himself remember one interesting roadtrip. Philadelphia maybe? She had spent 3 solid hours reciting "Portrait of The Artist" at him. He'd have fallen asleep at the wheel had it been anyone else reading that novel, and so he writes down Joyce on the mental list of books to buy Jack when he's old enough.

He knows that Dave and Morgan are waiting patiently outside in the hallway. He's pretty sure that Dave has unleashed the Glare of Death on at least 3 poor office-workers by now. But they won't come in here, Dave and Derek. They'll wait. Emily and JJ and Garcia will be waiting on the hard wooden benches outside the courtroom. He's seen Penelope's "Court Clothes", and allows himself a small smile at the thought. That she dressed up for this, makes the smile go away just as quickly. He hadn't had to ask, but he knows that they'll all be waiting outside, and they won't ask anything, and they won't make him say anything, and that just just makes it all the worse.

Because Hotch can form the words to a stranger. To a courtroom full of people and jury members and a stenographer, and Dr. Friedman the Bureau psychiatrist who'll be sitting there. But not to his team. He cannot, must not give them this burden. And even if he could, Hotch wonders if he could find the words to speak of it.

But George Foyet is standing trial and Aaron Hotchner knows that part of this means that he has to give his team one more pain. One more horror to shoulder, entirely undeserved.

He doesn't want to give them another problem. And yes, he made that statement to the Arlington Police which was equal parts pain, bad coffee and feeling Foyet all over again through the bad coffee and the chair that should have been comfortable and the glances that were half pitying, half attempts to understand.

(He decided early on that perhaps the reason that telling Morgan filled him with dread was that Derek Morgan *would* understand. In a way that he never should have had to. Hotch huffs a laugh, as he remembers Dr. F, a couple weeks ago telling him 'you have to accept that you can't fix everything'; that the team's pain doesn't have to be his pain, that he himself has enough to bear. He laughs that Friedman thinks this might be the necessary panacea, that he's not the first but the 5th, at least to tell him that. One of whom was another shrink, albeit one who was a raving sociopath.)

Hotch shakes himself awake again. He knows he's going to have to repeat this to the jury, to the courtroom, to Foyet. To hear the word 'rape', and see that awful smirk on his face one more time, only this time in perfect clarity. Without even the fog of the physical pain to mask it.

Aaron Hotchner is going to declare his pain and it hurts worse than the scars, the cocktail of medications and the way he'd seen himself spiralling and breaking. But he swallows it down like he's always done and tries not to think about why this time should be different. If he keeps believing it's not, he might come through this in one piece. Just another court appearance, that's all. When he speaks, he will look where he always does, at every court appearance.

He will look at the defendant and he will not blink.

-

It's after Hotch yells at Garcia that it really hits them all in the face. Hotch doesn't yell like that, JJ knows. He keeps that Hotch locked in a cage, bound down with heavy chains. Now they've seen and yes, it might scare her, it might have scared Garcia but more than that it hurts. Because when Hotch gets to the point where he can't manage to protect them any more, JJ doesn't want to think about where he's at.

She said she'd do whatever it took to protect her family and she meant it. Whatever it takes. Right now, she's going to make damn sure Mom's name is kept out of the media, out of the chain of gossip within the FBI. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. For Hotch, for Haley, for their son. For both Hotch's families.

-

Emily Prentiss hates that she wishes it had been someone else who'd been in that hospital room. Because she knows yes, but she's not going to betray what's left of Hotch's confidences in this case. They've been paraded in front of judge and jury enough as it is, and she can't bring herself to add to it (that she doubts he'd blame her makes it somehow that much worse). She hates that she's fairly sure that Hotch is the one who feels shame for that medical report, for Foyet even with the knowledge of the common check list of responses to an event like this.

Hotch knows that check list too. He might even have run through it in his head a time or five. Common responses. This is what they do, these things they know. Emily had seen Hotch thinking it and she knows they all run through it. Calling him Aaron, knives, hands on him, looming presences, breaking glass, the smell of scotch. That particular way he still tenses around blood and tries not to let them see it.

He's still apologising for having panic attacks and making sure they are all ok, after it, even now.

-

David Rossi has written of the necessity of vengeance. He thinks he might never have understood what it might mean to live it until this moment. Rothchild had been through the buffer of seeing the team safe. George Foyet is a different story but no, Dave doesn't take this on himself. He's going to take it on to Foyet, who can't get off on anything but destruction and deserves nothing more than a tiny little hole in the ground. He wants Foyet to have an oubliette, to be entirely erased from the world, from the notoriety that he will undoubtedly be given because for some sickening reason, the fact that he outsmarted empathy because Hotch cared makes Dave the sickest.

What he really wants to do is tell the world, well, it doesn't matter how smart this animal is, the other one, the one (he should say all, should write the story of the other victims too but right now, David Rossi needs to take care of his own first) had something that he hopes Foyet can never have, no matter how many times, no matter how many other ways the evil scrawny bastard may have won. Because Hotch didn't. He'd held him down, until the others had arrived and he'd delivered Foyet to the law and damn if the man isn't still care taking, still trying to take all the burden on himself, even now.

He does wish he had the knowledge to be able to say to Hotch that yes, the scars may show where you've been but they show something else. They show what you lived through. Therefore, you won. Evil Scrawny Bastard didn't. But it's not about keeping score and right now, words cannot hasten the healing.

-

When Aaron Hotchner testifies he speaks evenly and he looks across the courtroom as he always does. And when the court breaks he asks his team, can I get you anything? Are you okay? And they listen and they let him, because that's what Mom does. And when Dave walks him out for some air, he makes sure to stand beside him, not touching.

He lets Hotch close the distance when the other man wants to.


End file.
